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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26177422">he doesn't kiss me on the mouth anymore (it's too intimate)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/aloeverava/pseuds/aloeverava'>aloeverava</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canon Compliant, Childhood Friends, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Non-Graphic Smut, Unrequited Love</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:22:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,379</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26177422</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/aloeverava/pseuds/aloeverava</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Oikawa remembers wandering hands turning to entwined fingers, entwined fingers turning to embraced chests, embraced chests turning to locked lips.</p>
  <p>Oikawa remembers everything going so, so right with Iwaizumi.</p>
  <p>Too right, actually. He should’ve known that his fantasy was too high up in the clouds to be a reality, that he was living a delusion whilst Iwaizumi played along.</p>
  <p>He knew Iwaizumi hadn’t hurt him on purpose, of course. It’d been one big misunderstanding.</p>
  <p>A misunderstanding in that Iwaizumi didn’t see their interwoven digits and hearts beating skin-to-skin and mouths moving in sync the way Oikawa did.</p>
  <p>(Oikawa always knew he was too much of a romantic.)</p>
</blockquote>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>62</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>he doesn't kiss me on the mouth anymore (it's too intimate)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>prompt: "I can't help you."</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Oikawa remembers wandering hands turning to entwined fingers, entwined fingers turning to embraced chests, embraced chests turning to locked lips.</p><p>Oikawa remembers everything going so, so right with Iwaizumi.</p><p>Too right, actually. He should’ve known that his fantasy was too high up in the clouds to be a reality, that he was living a delusion whilst Iwaizumi played along.</p><p>He knew Iwaizumi hadn’t hurt him on purpose, of course. It’d been one big misunderstanding.</p><p>A misunderstanding in that Iwaizumi didn’t see their interwoven digits and hearts beating skin-to-skin and mouths moving in sync the way Oikawa did.</p><p>(Oikawa always knew he was too much of a romantic.)</p><p>Because Iwaizumi saw this as friendship—friendship with “benefits,” that’s what he’d said.</p><p>Oikawa may remember wandering hands and entwined fingers and embraced chests, but he doesn’t remember where they went wrong.</p><p>No, scratch that. He has an idea that <em>they</em> never went wrong, but rather, Oikawa himself was at fault.</p><p>He was at fault for falling in love with the boy who said his last name like a prayer but never his first name like scripture.</p><p>He was at fault for falling in love with the boy who held his hand, but never his heart.</p><p>He was at fault for falling in love with the boy who saw right through him, but never really looked at him.</p><p>He was at fault for falling in love with Iwaizumi Hajime.</p><p>And so, Oikawa learns to cope with their hasty touches and quickened pulses by pretending. He pretends that they are in love, that his childhood fantasy played out in the end. Of course, he has to keep this a secret from the other, lest he be disgusted and call off the string by which Oikawa was clutching onto him by.</p><p>But he slips up.</p><p>One night, after they lie panting side by side, shirts still on but pants shoved down to their ankles, the post-coital glow makes the words spill out of Oikawa’s mouth before he can help it.</p><p>“Do you love me?”</p><p>He surprises them both with the question.</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>“N-Nothing,” Oikawa stutters, flushing. “It was stupid.” He quickly dresses—an easy task, since there wasn’t much stripping done, to begin with—and almost trips over his own two feet running out the door.</p><p>Oikawa doesn’t let himself cry until he’s at least two blocks away from Iwaizumi’s house, because surely everyone within a ten-foot radius could hear the shattering of his heart.</p><p>He lets himself weep, replaying the supercut of a fantasy never lived, a fantasy where Hajime says to him, “I love you.”</p>
<hr/><p>They don’t speak about the incident the next day, or the next week, or even for the next year. Oikawa keeps calling Iwaizumi his best friend, his captain, <em>his friend.</em></p><p>
  <em>Friend.</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>They’ve developed a code of sorts. Both on and off the court, Oikawa has always been good at reading people, so the nuanced phrases are more for Iwaizumi’s benefit than his.</p><p>One, in particular, is, “I need help.”</p><p>(It’s usually Iwaizumi who says this, because he’s usually the one initiating their sessions, to be frank. Oikawa has rarely had to do so because it both feels like he’s taking advantage of him when he does and pains him too much to ask for something he knows will only hurt later.)</p><p>Oikawa’s response is always, “Okay.”</p><p>And then they fuck. Really, there’s no more eloquent way to put it, because that’s all it is—two high schoolers fooling around because they’re both there and they’re both willing.</p><p>He finds it easy to lose himself in the sex, to stop thinking, “God, I wish we were more,” when Iwaizumi is pounding into him for dear life. Distraction, that’s what it is.</p><p>And distraction is what Oikawa needs.</p>
<hr/><p>He slips up a second time on the night before qualifiers. They should really be getting some sleep before the big match, but they’re both too on edge with nerves to rest.</p><p>So they do what they always do: send the other a text just seconds apart, saying, “Are you busy?”</p><p>And they both reply, “No.”</p><p>And then Oikawa sets his phone down for a minute because he knows what comes next.</p><p>
  <em>“I need help.”</em>
</p><p>He doesn’t even need to say yes, just, “My place or yours?”</p>
<hr/><p>"You’re always going to be that guy that chases volleyball. You’ll be chasing it until you’re an old geezer,” Iwaizumi says as they’re walking home.</p><p>They lost.</p><p>It hurts to see the three years’ worth of blood, sweat, and tears that he’s put in to go to Nationals just be swept down the drain. Of course it does. If it didn’t hurt, Oikawa might’ve been worried about himself.</p><p>But it’s a bit refreshing to hurt about something other than the boy walking in step next to him, for once.</p><p>“Jeez, what kind of insult is that?” Oikawa asks, tilting his head back to look at the stars.</p><p>He doesn’t look to his right, where Iwaizumi walks, because he knows he’ll cry if he does.</p><p>Suddenly, he hears the scuff of sneakers on pavement; Iwaizumi had come to an abrupt stop. Oikawa does the same, turning to look at him quizzically. (God, it really is taking everything in him not to cry.)</p><p>“Oikawa…”</p><p>And then he goes and says it. The stupid, “proud to be your partner” bullshit. He says Oikawa is the best setter, that Oikawa has been an amazing team captain, that he couldn’t have asked for a better friend.</p><p>“...But I’ll be the one to beat you,” Iwaizumi finishes. Oikawa thinks that should lessen the blow just a bit, because volleyball is inherently different from his unrequited love for the boy.</p><p>Instead, it only makes it worse. It is the killing blow, the one that hammers the last nail in his coffin. Maybe it’s because it reaffirms the tragic reality that Oikawa will only ever mean volleyball to him, the fact that he will be “captain” and “fuckbuddy” and “Shittykawa” but never anything more.</p><p>But it’s okay, because Oikawa has come to terms with this fact. It must be their loss that’s making his already broken heart smash itself into even smaller pieces. Yeah, he tells himself. That must be it.</p><p>Iwaizumi holds out his fist.</p><p>Oikawa bumps it, ignoring the way his skin tingles with the Iwaizumi’s touch.</p><p>They walk in silence for a few moments more until they arrive at Iwaizumi’s house. His place has always been closer to school, which is the reason Oikawa is so used to the walls of Iwaizumi’s bedroom and the smell of his kitchen.</p><p>Nearing his front door, Oikawa can almost hear the tea kettle whistle and the carpet beneath his bare toes and see Iwaizumi’s ceiling as he loses himself in the rhythm of their hips.</p><p>And so it is no surprise when Iwaizumi pauses, one hand on the door, his mouth moving to shape a familiar question.</p><p>If Oikawa came in, announced to Iwaizumi’s mother that he was sleeping over, she wouldn’t bat an eye.</p><p>If Oikawa came in, he’d end up staring at Iwaizumi’s ceiling again, losing himself in the feeling of Iwaizumi and Iwaizumi only.</p><p>“I need—”</p><p>He can’t do this tonight. In fact, he can’t do this ever again.</p><p>“I can’t help you. Sorry.”</p><p>Oikawa expects Iwaizumi’s face to fall, for him to say something like, “Are you sure?”</p><p>Instead, he just shrugs.</p><p>“‘Kay, that’s fine. Everything alright, Oikawa-kun?”</p><p>
  <em>No, I’m in love with you, and I can’t handle having no-strings-attached sex with you anymore.</em>
</p><p>“Yeah, of course. Just not in the mood,” he smiles. Iwaizumi nods.</p><p>“Goodnight, then, Oikawa-kun.”</p><p>He ignores his protesting heart as it thumps erratically, itching to let out the words clawing their way up his sternum.</p><p>“Goodnight, Iwa-chan,” he says, watching as Iwaizumi closes the door.</p><p>He doesn’t know how much longer he stands there until tears begin to pour down his cheeks and the automatic porch light turns off because he’s been still for so long. Oikawa hears a voice, and it takes him a moment to recognize it’s his own, repeating the same sentiment over and over again into his lonely surroundings.</p><p>The night sky swallows up his every word, the stars the only audience to his three-word monologue.</p><p>“I love you.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this is actually kinda old but i??? never crossposted it here??? n e wayz find me on tumblr for shorter writing n stuff :)</p><p>tumblr: hairbleachwhore<br/>twt: glutenfreeroach<br/>ko-fi: aloeverava</p></blockquote></div></div>
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